Highly Defined

Wow, something special makes the top 100 in Amazon sales…

Well if you read comic books and own a next-generation DVD player, this was definitely your week to primp and preen. Batman Begins is coming out on 10/10 to HD-DVD, along with Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Both films will include the Warner In-Movie Experience (and Batman’s will apparently include participation by star Christian Bale if you look at your Warner inserts right). Begins will get a TrueHD track that ...s sure to be a floor rumbler, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will include one as a score-only feature, and extras will mirror the two-disc special edition treatment each got.

If you take $17,000 from your company and you leave without any form of punishment or prosecution, can your resignation really cite “personal differences?”

You know where your Cedia is? It’s one of the other big electronics shows that helps announce and introduce new technologies. One of the more remembered announcements was Toshiba’s announcement of a 2nd generation HD-DVD player. These newer versions include shorter load times, HDMI 1.3, and in one case, full 1080p resolution. There are two models, look f...r them to come out around the holiday season. Blu-Ray hardware owners can take note that Samsung will be providing a firmware upgrade on their player sometime in October. Wow, one upgrade in 3 months, and Toshiba's HD-DVD player has had 3 or 4 in about 6. Oh well. The upgrade will supposedly allow for the Blu-Java applications, as well as the 50GB discs.

We all know what today is, so let’s skip the tagline.

Well, for all the news (interesting and otherwise) that the Blu-Ray camp made last week, Universal announced their round of November titles for HD-DVD release. Among them are Waterworld (I met Kevin Costner on the set of that film when I was in the Army, true story), The Hulk (a better movie than people give it credit for and one that should blow out a subwoofer or two) and the granddaddy of them all, King Kong. Release for all three...is 11/14. What makes this interesting is that Kong is also due for an Extended Edition release on the same day, which mildly disappoints me from that standpoint. Do I buy a movie with more Jack Black and Naomi Watts, or do I watch them as is in high def? Oh well, it’s a somewhat pleasant dilemma to have. Release news has been lacking otherwise, no new Blu-Ray releases of note (though The Da Vinci Code will NOT receive a Blu release), and You, Me and Dupree bows as a combo disc on 11/21.

Insert silly saying here, I’ve got no energy to do so, for it’s the day of rest in America.

What can I say, I’m going to sit and watch my butt expand this go round (damn, I’m doing it now), so here we go…

I feel like a kid in some sort of a store…

Well the week has seen some surprises, concrete or not for both camps. First and foremost, the 2.0 Firmware for the Toshiba HD player is out now. There has been some glowing praise, not only for the firmware (which now allows TruHD), but for the continuing consumer support. Bill Hunt at The Digital Bits was the first to really publicly comment on the job Toshiba (and the HD camp is doing), and while as an HD owner I can agree with it, one also has to remembe... that HD did have a couple month head start on things, we’ll see how they prepare for the release of some of the newer (read: probably better) Blu-Ray players in the coming months. While I haven’t had the chance to download it yet, I will be doing so soon and promptly throwing in Constantine to check it out. So the question for the dear reader is would you like to see revamped scores on the available discs with the TruHD soundtrack?

Highly Defined

How long until Madden comes out?

Where your trusty columnist has joined the ranks of the Xbox owners…

Things have moved along like people have figured in the next-gen DVD wars, which is to say, there isn’t a clear winner since the last time we talked. There is some news from Paramount, being that Mission: Impossible III will release SD, Blu and HD DVDs all on the day and date (10/30 for those who are curious). The HD release and extras will be duplicated from the Blu-Ray extras, with the exception of a picture-in-picture commentary ...ith director J.J. Abrams and Tom Cruise. Whether Tom tries to induct J.J. into Scientology during the commentary or not remains to be seen, but the commentary will be exclusive to HD-DVD.

In what universe is a weekend jail visit considered a “family emergency” when it comes to missing your job? Can anyone answer this for me? By all means, send your answers (or curious situations) to yours truly. I’m curious to hear what the responses are.

The big news in the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray battle is that Training Day, Rumor Has It and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang arrived on Blu-Ray this week, after being available in HD-DVD for a little while now. And the verdict? Well, at least according to Pet...r Bracke (of highdefdigest.com), the results appear to favor HD-DVD, but only on points. The response from the Blu-Ray camp appears to be along the lines of “well, the Samsung player had a faulty internal issue that we’re working on now”. The funny thing is that there have been some advance reports of demos with the Pioneer Blu-Ray player, and the early line on those appears to be better, however not earth shattering as Blu advocates would hope. However, there’s still a long way to go before someone actually sees (and pays over $1,000 for) one of these things, so we’ll see what happens.

What’s that thing on your shoulder? Oh yeah, it’s almost the end of fricken summer, go out and play already!!!

Well, after my proverbial guts had been spilled on the floor last week, let’s look at news and notes on the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray fronts, shall we?

OK, so after a brief disruption of service, there’s a new blog author in town for the Highly Defined column, and he’s me. To just do a quick intro on the author of the column: this is me!

No wait, that probably won’t suffice. But to assuage those videophiles in the house, here are a few things about the gear I watch this stuff on. I’ve got a Toshiba HD-A1 (I had the XA1 for a couple of weeks, then I came to my senses and realized that this was WAY too much money to spend on a DVD player, hence the ex...hange). I’ve also got another Toshiba for upconverting purposes, but the fact that it’s got a region-free remote control hack at least gives me the chance to watch the uncut Kill Bill or House of Flying Daggers in DTS, never mind that any day now, I’m getting the new 2 disc Special Editions of the entire James Bond set from Amazon UK…